HADES - high heat load testing - facility at CEA-IRFM

Abstract

A new facility based on an electron beam for the testing of plasma facing components (PFC) has been built at CEA-IRFM (France). The aim of this facility, named HADES (High heAt loaD tESt), is to assess heat removal capabilities of PFCs exposed to high heat flux. The facility can cover thermal fatigue tests, critical heat fluxes and thermal shocks. This facility has been designed in order to provide the maximum performance and flexibility for the qualification of PFCs.This facility has been built collecting a former high heat load platform, named FE200 [1], and located in Le Creusot-France resulting from collaboration between CEA and Framatome in the 90′s. All the systems have been refurbished except the e-beam gun, which has been replaced by a brand new one with 150 kW and 45 kV of maximum power and accelerating voltage, respectively.The HADES e-beam gun will permit to simulate steady state experiments with thermal flux up to a few tens MW/m² and transient events with thermal energy up to 1 GW/m² during a few milliseconds. A programmable sweep system allows several kinds of energy repartition (uniform and peaked), on a ± 25° shooting angle with the normal to the surface.This paper will present in details the technical specifications related to the e-beam gun as well as to the auxiliary systems. Finally, the main results of the commissioning tests and first campaign, achieved at the end of 2020 will be presented.